Stones vs. Diamond?

[car99r]

I know you guys have probable discussed this to no end on here but after searching for an hour I could not come up with the an exact answer to my question.

I have a 26X30' new concrete slab. It was sprayed with a CS-309 sealer when completed 3 months ago. I know I have to grind it off but not sure which direction to go?

I can rent either machine but pricing is completely different.

Diamond Floor Grinder 312.00-1/2 day, 512.00-1 day (he tells me I have to rent the diamond cutters separate for the same price as machine. That is why the high price I guess)

Stone Floor Grinder 65.00-1/2 day, 88.00-1 day ( I purchase the stones at 30.00 per set)

I personally like the stone idea but have heard that it may not do the job because of the sealer???

Thoughts? Those of you who have used the stones. How did it go?

 

[Mlynch]

I own a diamond grinder and have used the stone grinders... no comparison stones wont work (at least not in any reasonable time). A lot of times rental companies that rent diamond grinders force you to buy your set of diamonds and not rent.

Get me some info on whatk ind of diamond grinder and diamonds this guy is trying to rent to you... With almost 800 square ft you might be better off having a company come in and grind it for you... market price for something like that would hover around a buck a square ft but in these slow economic times hwo knows what you could work out.

What kind of sealer is this? This might really be over kill...

 

[premierguy]

Seems to be an awful waste of money to redo it after three months.

I've gone over junk sealers with less than grinding methods.

Now what other options does that leave you?

 

[car99r]

I own a diamond grinder and have used the stone grinders... no comparison stones wont work (at least not in any reasonable time). A lot of times rental companies that rent diamond grinders force you to buy your set of diamonds and not rent.

Get me some info on whatk ind of diamond grinder and diamonds this guy is trying to rent to you... With almost 800 square ft you might be better off having a company come in and grind it for you... market price for something like that would hover around a buck a square ft but in these slow economic times hwo knows what you could work out.

What kind of sealer is this? This might really be over kill...

The floor was sealed with a stuff called CS-309. Here is link for it from the manufacturer.

http://www.wrmeadows.com/wrm00022.htm

I just got back from another rental store and here are my options...

Edco Floor Grinder = $88.00 /4 hrs
$132.00 /24 hrs


Diamond Cutters = $88.00 /4 hrs
$132.00 /24 hrs

or I can buy;

Stones = $43.95 a set
Scarifiers = $98.95 a set

Now, scarifiers seems like the lgoical choice but figure I would check it all out. I have been told before I could not get through it very quick with the stones. Might take all day even if I can get it. I have also been told that Acid's will not work since I have the sealer.

Thoughts or suggestions? I calleda couple places about doing it and they said a standard fee of $100.00 plus $1.00 /sq foot. It is 780 square foot so I really don't want to spend that kind of money.

Seems to be an awful waste of money to redo it after three months.

I've gone over junk sealers with less than grinding methods.

Now what other options does that leave you?

Options I have are above. You think Muriatic Acid would do it? I have been told before "no"

 

[Mlynch]

The sealer is an acrylic and no big deal... acrylics are probably one of the easiest things to remove...

no no no on the acid... you were told right

you CAN get by with a janitorial low speed scrubber with a sanding disk on the bottom... however for the price of rental you may be better of going with the edco depending on the details

the edco grinder w/ diamonds sound like the best bet. What size grinder and What grit diamonds? i would recomend 36 grit or thereabout. If this is a very smal grinder this may not be a good deal... (sounds like at most it is under 300 dollars for 24 hrs)

as far as the company and the prep work dont accept their first quote... give them a price and see if they will do it. If not move on to another. There are deals to be had w/ the slow economy.

 

[Mlynch]

i almost forgot there is one more option... might be fine for your case but i will let you make the decision.

1. since the slab was sprayed when it was brand new the acrylic sealer should have good adhesion.

2.if you have access to a cheap pump sprayer or some spray bottles (these might get ruined) or you can use rags. (maybe a mop?) get couple gallons of acetone.

3. spray and wipe or just wipe down the entire slab and after the acetone flashes off proceed with your coating.

This will take the shine off the sealer as well as softening it a bit (for just a while) promoting better adhesion between whatever you use over it. Not the absolute best way to do this but it can work just fine.

 

[UnSub45]

I just rented an Edco with C-8 stones. It was a total waste of time and money. The scarifiers in the Edco worked better. I got the job done with them, but they were still very slow. If I had to grind a floor again I would not even think about it without the diamond bits. My prep was much harder then it should have been because I did not have the proper tool for the job.

 

[Mlynch]

also keep in mind edco has lots of different machines... which machine are they trying to rent to you?

 

[car99r]

The sealer is an acrylic and no big deal... acrylics are probably one of the easiest things to remove...

no no no on the acid... you were told right

you CAN get by with a janitorial low speed scrubber with a sanding disk on the bottom... however for the price of rental you may be better of going with the edco depending on the details

the edco grinder w/ diamonds sound like the best bet. What size grinder and What grit diamonds? i would recomend 36 grit or thereabout. If this is a very smal grinder this may not be a good deal... (sounds like at most it is under 300 dollars for 24 hrs)

as far as the company and the prep work dont accept their first quote... give them a price and see if they will do it. If not move on to another. There are deals to be had w/ the slow economy.

Not sure what grit the diamonds are but will find out before renting it. I have it reserved with the scarifiers on Friday but think I am going to change to the diamonds after doing more reading and from what I hear from you.

I just rented an Edco with C-8 stones. It was a total waste of time and money. The scarifiers in the Edco worked better. I got the job done with them, but they were still very slow. If I had to grind a floor again I would not even think about it without the diamond bits. My prep was much harder then it should have been because I did not have the proper tool for the job.

Glad I asked first.... Thank you very much for the heads up!

also keep in mind edco has lots of different machines... which machine are they trying to rent to you?

Not sure the model? It is a large walk behind machine. I was told it weighed around 300 lbs...lol

 

[Mlynch]

sounds like you are def on the right track...

 

[car99r]

Thanks, I have been doing lots of reading but I am sure I will have momre questions before I do it. Planning on grinding floor on Friday morning.

After that what would be the best method to get it really clean of debris?

I have a leaf blower, power washer and broom...lol

I am thinking run the leaf blower real good, sweep, power wash real good. Anything else?

 

[Mlynch]

well personally i would skip the power washer... use a wet dry broom and blower. That should do it and keep the unneeded moisture out of the slab. This is especially important if you are coating on Sat morning.

 

[car99r]

Thank you very much Matt!

I will see what I can do with just the leaf blower and wet/dry broom first.

 

[Mlynch]

BTW before you absolutely kill yourself trying to get it spotless and every spec of dust... it doesn't have to be clean enough to eat off of. Vacuum up the majority... sweep a couple times. Blow the remainer out of the garage. After this maybe kinda scrub the dry concrete with the pushbroom or a deck brush and repeat the blowing process. All in all the standard garage should only take 30-45 min to clean up.

p.s. if your cars are really cxlean move them away from the garage or you will blow dust on them ;-)

 

[car99r]

Thanks a million Matt!

My stuff arrived today from Origialcolorchips and the lady down the street is printing me up a vinyl HD decal for the floor. I am going to start a thread about my garage and experiences here in a bit with a few pictures.

I could not have done this without this place and yourself. Tom (thefloorguy?) was a big help as well. Thanks Tom!

 

[Mlynch]

Hey One more thing... My company has done the vinyl decals in the floor. I have had a couple problems with the vinyl ones wrinkling/shriveling around the edges. They didn't look horrible but i was happy about it... Some one with more experience than myself w/ the logos recomended that the next time we do this to have the decal printed on a polyester rather than a vinyl decal. This is especially important (i am told) if the material has any solvent or is solvent based. Take a few minutes and have your neighbor print you a minature version of the logo on scrap material and try a 1 by 1 sample on a tile or something with the little one first. Might save you a lot of time or problems in the long run. Wouldn't want you to spend all that time prepping and installing this floor just to have you unhappy with a sealed in logo! I don't think we were using 100% solids epoxy on the job where we had that problem it has been a couple years but i think it was a polyurea top coat that was slightly solvented... i am betting you will get better results with a 100 percent solids product.

Good Luck with the floor and save the thanks untill after its all done ;-)

 

[car99r]

Did you cover teh ecal with an acryrlic clear paint before applying the top coat? I was told to make sure I done this and it would stop it from curling/wrinkling. I do have a solvent product and she only has vinyl....

 

[Mlynch]

I did not but my supplier at the time told me to slap those suckers on the floor coat over and it would be great... he was wrong. That acrylic sounds like it should work for you though... I am guessing that the vinyl should do just fine with a water based product!

 

[car99r]

Well I am using a solvent based product and and going to put at least one coat of acryrlic clear paint over the decal. I might go ahead and put two coats just to make sure it is covered well. The trick will be putting down a 6' wide graphic on the floor and getting it swuare and no bubbles with only 2 people...lol

 

[car99r]

Real quick question on the grinding. Would it be ok to dampen the floor using the diamond cutters? I was thinking it might help cut the dust but not sure if it would be recommended. Anyone try it?

 

[Mlynch]

this is fine... it will make cleanup harder if you use too much water because then it turns to mud. Most grinders have a port to **** dust up as you grind... i am suprised the rental company doesnt offer a dust containment vacuum w/ the grinder or at least as an option.

 

[car99r]

I will have to ask them in the morning. If not I will try to just dampen slightly if the dust is too bad. Thanks agin for your input...

 

[tdickman]

carr99r, Hope your grind went OK. Here's a video and some good shots of an HTC500 grinder. Kind of gives you an idea of what good prepped concrete should look like.

http://www.lxtv.com/openhousenyc/video/297

 

[car99r]

Thank you for the video tdickman. I have yet to grind mine. I am picking the grinder up on Friday morning and doing it then.

I have yet to figure out how to handle the 4" raised curb that my walls set on. I would like to coat them as well and not worried about chips getting on them but basecoat and clear would be nice. If I tape off the bottom of the walls do I remove the tape before the epoxy cures or after? I would think it would be pretty tough to remove once hardened.

Thanks to everyone for all of the input and answers...

 

[Mlynch]

Go right up the 4inch curb with the coating and use that as a baseboard...

the tape can be removed before, after, or inbetween coats... sometimes it is def tougher to remove after. One of the reasons i dont like removeing it after i do my clear coat (and it is still wet) is because chunks or loose chips can fall from the tape removal leaving burs on the floor after it cures. I think you get a much cleaner edge if you use a razer to assist in removal after the entire floor is done. Pull the tape ate a downward 45 degree angle and 90 percent of it comes off w/ no problems and you can use the razer for problem areas.

 

[car99r]

Go right up the 4inch curb with the coating and use that as a baseboard...

the tape can be removed before, after, or inbetween coats... sometimes it is def tougher to remove after. One of the reasons i dont like removeing it after i do my clear coat (and it is still wet) is because chunks or loose chips can fall from the tape removal leaving burs on the floor after it cures. I think you get a much cleaner edge if you use a razer to assist in removal after the entire floor is done. Pull the tape ate a downward 45 degree angle and 90 percent of it comes off w/ no problems and you can use the razer for problem areas.

Sounds likea plan! You don't think I should coat the curb?

 

[Mlynch]

Yes coat the curb... It would make a nice looking baseboard. Or am i not understanding your question...

 

[car99r]

Yes coat the curb... It would make a nice looking baseboard. Or am i not understanding your question...

I think we are on the same page. I just thought when you said "it would make a nice baseboard" you meant to not coat it and paint it a different color.

Thanks

 

[mhm993]

I've been told that the self leveling nature of expoxy makes it want to slide off vertical walls--though I thought it would look terrific on my foundation walls, as well.

 

[car99r]

I've been told that the self leveling nature of expoxy makes it want to slide off vertical walls--though I thought it would look terrific on my foundation walls, as well.

Ouch! Anyone know if there is any truth to this or if there is a trick to get it to stick?

 

[FFPL]

Ouch! Anyone know if there is any truth to this or if there is a trick to get it to stick?

I did it on my wolverine floor.
Here's a small portion before a did the floor (walls were done first)

See thread http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13347 for more info.

I used a thickener to allow the color coat (liquitile) to stay put. Looks really nice but it was quite a bit of work.

 

[Mlynch]

Wait let me start over... yes do coat the baseboards with your epoxy and chiped floor material... it will work fine. Yes some lower viscosity epoxys may take two tries to get good chip coverage but it works fine for verticle surfaces.

 

[tdickman]

We call them stem walls (they are part of the foundation that supports the wall) and we coat them all the time, always done the same time as the floor. If you want to just leave them solid you may want to coat the stem walls first with the base coat, let it dry then do the coat and chips on the floor, if you get any chips on the stem wall with wet coating you can always go back with base and touch it up (before top coat). Another tip is to broad cast the chips into the air and let them fall, if you throw down towards the floor chips will tend to bounce off the wet coating and stick on surrounding things like walls, doors etc. Last tip, many of the floors we do have felt between the floor and the stem wall, we always grind it flat and run a bead of cement latex caulk on the felt then spread the caulk to cover the felt with a chip brush. If you try and just coat the felt it usually ***** up the coating like a sponge and the chips won't stick.

 

[car99r]

I love this place!

It is no big deal if the chips get on the curb and in fact might still look good to me. Thank you all for the help and support so far.

I pick up the Edco grinder and diamond cutters in the morning at 9:00 am and plan to try and have the floor ready for Epoxy on Saturday. I only have the floor grinder for 4 hours tomorrow so hopefully this is enough time to get it right.

So to recap...

Friday - Prep work
Saturday - Basecoat and chips
Sunday - Decal (this thing is huge so I am going to put it down with "wet app" and get all bubbles out then let dry)
Monday - clear acrylic paint over the decal (2 coats spray)
Tuesday - Clear coat Epoxy...

Doing it like this I hope to make sure everything is dry/cured before the next step...

 

[car99r]

OK guys,

That *****! I went over it really well with the Edco and now I have a huge mess of dust...lol I swept it up and then put some water down and swept it up again. After drying it leaves a real fine white dust across the floor. What is the trick to getting this stuff up?

I also will have to get a flap disk or something to go around the outside edge that could not be reached with Edco. I also noticed I have a lot of overspray on the curb so going to have to try and get it off with flap disk as well...

Any suggestions/thoughts?

 

[UnSub45]

For the edges I used a 5" hand grinder with a double cup diamond wheel. It takes a while to get the hang of it, then goes pretty fast.

To really get the dust off I used an "aqua broom" connected to my power washer. I am not sure I really needed to do it, but when I was done I could have ate off the floor.